2 8 EXPLORATIONS IN THE FAR NORTH 



governor's visit. "This is the way it was laid down to the 

 Indian" said Old Joe. "I will give you cattle, horses, sheep, 

 hogs, and poultry. If you desire them, I will furnish you with 

 a carpenter, a blacksmith, and a farmer, that you may learn 

 these trades. I will give you a doctor and a school-teacher. I 

 will provide you with scythes to cut grass, tools and machinery 

 to till the soil, twine from which to make nets, rations of food 

 and an annual gift of money. We will care for you as if you 

 were our children. As long as the sun shall shine and the 

 water run, this promise shall never be at an end." 



The Indians made no demands but signed the treaty without 

 protest. One of the leading men of the band asked that a 

 copy of the treaty be made at once and left with them. "We 

 have no time now," was the answer. "We are using a borrowed 

 boat and must push on at once." The chief brought a copy of 

 the treaty to me. It was wrapped in an old apron with a few 

 letters and a quantity of aromatic leaves. This document stated 

 that cattle would be given to the thirty families on the reserve; 

 a school-teacher would be provided and they would be fur- 

 nished "once for all" with plows, hoes, etc.; $500.00 per annum 

 was to be expended in purchasing ammunition and netting 

 twine for the reserves contained in Treaty Number Five, nearly 

 fifty in all, embracing an area of about one hundred thousand 

 square miles. 1 For a number of years this has not been suffi- 

 cient to provide one-third the twine necessary to make one net 

 for each family. The rations issued amounted anually to eight 

 pounds of flour, a little bacon, tea and tobacco for each man. 

 The attempts to make the Crees self supporting have not been 

 very succcessful. 



Cattle to the number of twelve head, were placed on the 

 reserve twenty-five years ago. A few years later a second lot 

 were received, nearly all of which died of starvation during 

 the next winter. In 1892 seven more arrived and these, too, 

 were dying when I left the post in February. Hay was scarce 

 and of poor quality. It was cut from the marshes which were 

 overflowed by the lake in stormy weather. The severe gale 

 previously mentioned destroyed the diminutive stacks of hay 

 which had been left to be hauled by dog teams during the 

 winter. The Indians are not allowed to sell their cattle, to kill 



1 Begg, Alex., History of the Northwest, Vol. II, app., p. 44. 



